HUNGARY: Left v. Right Hand

Hungarian politics took a fantastic turn fortnight ago when anti-Semitic Premier Béla von Imrédy resigned, ostensibly because he had discovered that he was one-eighth Jewish, actually because he was too willing a Nazi stooge to suit the independent Magyars. Last week his successor, Count Paul Teleki, erstwhile Boy Scout leader, made more confusing news. Having announced that he would support the brutal anti-Semitic laws planned by Dr. Imrédy and that he was in agreement with the “peaceful aims of the Rome-Berlin axis,” the Teleki Government promptly ordered police to round up the green-shirted Hungarist Party, the country’s largest Nazified organization (estimated membership: 1,000,000). The party was outlawed, party headquarters and homes of members were ransacked, 500 Green Shirts were seized and “leading personalities” were bundled off to a concentration camp.

While the strong right hand of the Teleki Government was cracking down on the Nazis, the dexterous left hand went on signing up with them. In Budapest, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Count Stefan Ćsáky signed the anti-Comintern pact with representatives of Italy, Japan and Germany at the very moment the raids were in progress. In this Alice in Wonderland atmosphere, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop wired congratulations to Hungary on its adherence to “the pact … for fighting the subversive elements which threaten world peace.”

Significance: What these Hungarian inconsistencies suggested was that the Magyar aristocrats, willing enough to let Germany dictate foreign policy, were resolved to resist doggedly any real threat to their internal economic and political privileges.